[Talk-us] Highway Tagging Consensus to Improve OSM (and address some of 41 latitude's concerns)

[Dale Puch]

>> == "Inconsistent State Prefixes" ==

I wish there was a better (simpler) way to consistently tag the state and
county shields but I do not have one.  I think it needs to be done though.
Compared to the rest of the world, I think the US has an extra layer of 50
varying standards to deal with.

I would add to Val's e-mail that county roads might need the same
US:UT:CR-14 as I believe they are handled differently in some state as
well.  Also to differentiate them from tags from other parts of the world.

-- 
Dale Puch


On Fri, Oct 15, 2010 at 12:47 PM, Val Kartchner <val42k at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Fri, 2010-10-15 at 12:08 -0400, Phil! Gold wrote:
> > == "Hyphens" ==
> >
> > There's a lot of inconsistency in tagging in road's ref= tags.  The main
> > wiki pages (Interstate Highways, United States road tagging) specifically
> > call for using spaces between the network designation and the network
> > number.  A lot of people still use dashes for Interstates, because thet's
> > how they're commonly written (and because "I-5" is more obvious than
> > "I 5", which might be read as "15").
>
> At least here in the US, the dash is convention so it should be used in
> the map.
>
> > == "Inconsistent State Prefixes" ==
> >
> > This is another very inconsistent area.  The main US wiki page (United
> > States road tagging) says to use the state's two-letter postal code
> > (optionally with a US: prefix).  In practice, usage varies wildly,
> > generally based on how individual states prefer to represent their
> routes:
> > in states like Maryland that use their postal code, usage is pretty
> > uniform; in states like Ohio that use a "SR" prefix, usage is mixed
> > between local customs and the postal code standard.
> >
> > A further complication is the presence of county roads.  The wiki doesn't
> > mention any standard for those.  From what I've seen, they mostly end up
> > as "CR" or whatever the local nomenclature is.
> >
> > Should we use the postal code everywhere for nationwide consistency or
> > should we use the prefixes that locals use?  If we use postal codes, what
> > should we do about county or town roads?
>
> We should find some consistent way to do it such that it is easy for a
> renderer to parse.  Then the renderers will need to be changed to use
> them.  Once this is done, people will be more likely to enter them
> properly since they will show up in a special way.
>
> So, for instance, in Utah the state routes are designated (without
> abbreviation) State Route 67 (for instance).  This is abbreviated as
> SR-67.  However, a sign with this designation is not used very much.
> The much more commonly used signage is "67" is the state highway shield
> (a white beehive on a black background).  This is how the renderers
> should put it on the state highways.  (Wikipedia does it this way on
> each page.)
>
> I haven't seen any county road signs (on physical roads), but I've heard
> the renderers will draw the number in a circle.
>
> The standard should be something easy to parse.  Perhaps, for the above
> example, it would be "US:UT:SR-67".  This would allow an easy way to
> parse which shield to use.  For instance, a made-up Canadian route would
> be "CA:BC:12".  The colons would designate a field, and a space or dash
> would indicate a subfield.  The renderer could just use all but the last
> field to figure out which shield to use ("US:UT" or "CA:BC"), then use
> the last subfield of the last field to draw the shield.  This would work
> for an instance I've seen in New Hampshire which would be "US:NH:3A".
>
> I'm sure that there are some exceptions, to using the last subfield to
> draw the shield.  Let's hear about them.
>
> > == "Semi-Colons" ==
>
> > He shows a road that has a ref= of "I 88;56".  I think it should be
> > completely uncontroversial to say that each part of a
> > semicolon-delimited ref should have the appropriate network
> > information in it.
>
> I agree with your solution.  Again, the renderer needs to draw the
> highway shields.  If there is no special treatment by the renderer for
> doing things in the proper way, then it is less likely that things will
> be tagged correctly.  I'm reminded of the truism, "What gets rewarded
> gets repeated."
>
>
> - Val -
>
>
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